No Rest for the Dead 6 страница

Kroege reached for his phone, then realized the museum installers were, like just about everyone else, on vacation.

The hallway leading to the basement storeroom was hot, the consequence of turning off the museum’s air-conditioning at night, an energy-saving effort that Kroege disapproved of despite the board vote, and particularly irritating at the moment with his starched white shirt already sticking to his thick upper body.

He was sorry he’d loaned the iron maiden to the American museum in the first place and would not have if the curator hadn’t persisted in a letter-writing campaign that culminated in her calling and pleading, insisting it would be the centerpiece of an exhibition devoted to savage-torture devices, and, in her polite-though-forthright manner, convincing him. Unlike most of the American curators Kroege dealt with, who acted as if they were entitled to anything and everything, Rosemary Thomas had been a velvet steamroller, as genteel as she was persuasive. And good to her word, her exhibition at the McFall Art Museum had garnered serious press, which had credited his museum with the loan, and so perhaps it had not been a bad idea, though right now he was anxious to get it back on display.

The workroom felt like a tomb, no sign or sense of a human presence among the multisized crates and art objects awaiting repair, tools strewn along a worktable, sawdust on the floor, more suspended in the hot, sticky air.

Kroege snorted with disgust. How dare his employees leave the room in such condition? He shook his head as he made his way toward the largest crate, taller than he by several feet and twice as wide.

Kroege circled the crate as if inspecting some object from outer space and stopped dead when he noticed a foot-long crack in the plywood. Had the maiden been damaged in shipping?

He plucked an electric drill from the worktable and quickly removed a dozen Sheetrock screws until one side of the panel fell open—and with that came the faint odor of rotten eggs or fruit.

Kroege, features screwed up, imagined some idiotic American workman accidentally packing his lunch along with the precious maiden.

He stared at the one exposed side. It looked fine. But he had to see if it had been damaged elsewhere.

More screws undone, more plywood tugged away, until the maiden stood in all her glory, a black iron monolith, forbidding and impressive.

Kroege pictured its insides, the iron prongs that closed on its living victims, a torture device from which the only escape was death.

He ran his hand over the hard, pebbly surface, ignoring the smell, which was stronger now, more like rotting meat than fruit or eggs, but the device itself looked fine, unscathed.

Just then he looked down and saw the liquid seeping out from the bottom.

“Was zum Teufel…?”

Kroege bent over to swipe a finger through the puddle, but never reached it, the stench so strong, so repulsive, that he immediately straightened up, fighting the urge to gag.

He stared at the iron maiden, then slowly, and with much effort, began to pry her open.

He didn’t get far.

The object inside, as big as Kroege, wrapped in heavy, opaque plastic and bound with tape and rope, tumbled out and hit the floor with a thud. Then, as its contents settled, the top of the plastic split open and a milky ooze, studded with lumps and streaked with lemony yellow and deep crimson, pooled around his shoes, while the stench filled his nose and caught in the back of his throat like burning acid and rot. When, as if hypnotized, he dared a closer look, he recognized a human skull and the black hole of a mouth that appeared to be moving.

Hand over his nose, Kroege looked closer, realizing too late that the movement was caused by a swarm of maggots.

Then he was spinning, flailing, shoes skidding in the primordial ooze, and slipped and fell, his face inches from the hideous skull, one murky, jellied eye socket staring at him as he frantically scampered away and somehow managed to right himself, the contents of his belly having finally worked their way up into his throat, vomit spewing forth as he raced from the workroom.

The Police Reports

KATHY REICHS

EVIDENCE

TRANSFER RECORD

Institute of Legal Medicine

REPORT OF AUTOPSY EXAMINATION

DECEDENT

Document Identifier: C1998073042

Autopsy Type: ME Autopsy

Name: Unknown (Presumed, Thomas, Christopher, DOB 19 09 52)

Age: 35 to 50 years

Race: White

Sex: M

Stature: 183 centimeters +/-

AUTHORIZATION

Authorized by: Dr. Dagmar Zepper

Received From: Berlin City Police, District 3

ENVIRONMENT

Date of Exam 20/7/1998 Time of Exam 0915 hours

Autopsy Facility Institute of Legal Medicine, Berlin

Persons Present. Adolph Munger, Mette Brinkman

CERTIFICATION

Cause of Death

Undetermined

Manner of Death

Homicide

The facts stated herein are correct to the best of my knowledge and belief.

Signed by

Bruno Muntz, MD 20/7/1998, 1429 hours

DIAGNOSES

Decomposed human adult

IDENTIFICATION

Body Identified By

Personal effects; partial print, left fifth finger

EXTERNAL DESCRIPTION

Body Condition Decomposed/skeletal

Hair Degraded, original color is undeterminable

Teeth Missing, save one fragment

Clothing was adult male-type trousers, jacket, shirt, and undergarments. A gold belt buckle bore the initials CT, surrounded by a circular diamond pattern. When removed from the apparatus, the remains weighed 60 kilograms. Organs were liquefied. Brain and soft tissue were putrefied. Some bones remained connected by ligamentous tissue. One digit was deeply embedded in the left femoroacetabular junction, preserving the tissue of the distal aspect. Insect specimens were collected and submitted for analysis. See separate entomology report.

INJURIES

Though sloughing, the skin of the torso and limbs showed multiple sharp-instrument perforations. Though putrefied, the muscles of the torso and limbs showed multiple sharp-instrument perforations. Fifty-three fractures and perforations were seen on the skull and postcranial skeleton. No associated hemorrhage was evident. All sharp- and blunt-instrument trauma was consistent with postmortem injury due to spikes projecting inward within the iron maiden apparatus.

DISPOSITION OF CLOTHING AND PERSONAL EFFECTS

Clothing discarded. Belt buckle returned to family along with remains.

PROCEDURES

Radiographs

Selected postmortem odontological and long-bone radiographs were obtained to aid in determining identity and cause of death. See separate radiology and odontology reports.

IDENTIFICATION

See separate fingerprint report.

INTERNAL EXAMINATION

Body Cavities

Organs liquefied. No samples retained.

Skeletal examination

Survey

The bones consisted of a complete adult skeleton. Fractures and perforations were noted at fifty-three locations. (See attached skeletal diagram.) Femoral measurements were taken to establish height. Following skeletal survey and measurement, radiographs were made of the maxilla and mandible, the torso, and the long bones of the lower and upper extremities. Blunt- and sharp-instrument trauma was evident at fifty-three sites. No associated hemorrhage was observed at any trauma site. Following the examination of radiographs by the radiologist and the odontologist, the bones were packaged for transport to the United States.

SUMMARY AND INTERPRETATION

At the time of discovery decedent’s identity was unknown. The body had been wrapped in thick plastic and taped.

Officials at the San Francisco Police Department provided information of a missing person, Thomas, Christopher, last seen alive 20/06/1998. Dr. Dagmar Zepper, Berlin, medical examiner, assumed jurisdiction of the body and authorized autopsy. Review of Christopher Thomas’s medical records showed that he was a white male, stature 180 centimeters, forty-five years old at the time of his disappearance.

Autopsy examination showed a skeletonized human adult with liquefied organs and putrefied brain and musculature. Long-bone measurements were consistent with a white male of stature of approximately 180 centimeters. Findings were consistent with enclosure of the body within the iron maiden apparatus following death.

Fingerprint analysis positively identified the decedent as Christopher Thomas. See fingerprint report.

Entomological analysis suggested a PMI greater than 18 days, a time period consistent with an LSA for Christopher Thomas of 20/06/1998 with discovery of the body on 18/07/1998. See entomology report.

In my opinion, the cause of death in this case is most appropriately certified as “undetermined.” Examination of the skeletal remains does not allow differentiation of death from a natural disease process such as pneumonia, or from a nontraumatic external means, such as asphyxia.

The circumstances of body treatment require manner of death be classified as “homicide.”

Bruno Muntz 20 July 1998

Bruno Muntz, MD 20 July 1998

DIAGRAMS

1. Skeleton (front/back)

ASSOCIATED REPORTS

Entomology

Fingerprint

Odontology

Radiology

THE PRESENT

JOHN LESCROART

The fog was in.

The forty-two-year-old estate lawyer Stan Ballard pulled his car into an open parking space at Ocean Beach about a hundred yards south of San Francisco’s legendary tourist attraction the Cliff House, which was all but invisible through the gray cloud that enveloped the western half of the city.

For a long moment, cocooned in the warmth of his Lexus, Ballard simply sat behind the wheel and let the motor run, watching the mist settle onto the windshield, almost as if it were actually raining. But there was no real rain, only the damned perennial fog. On the dashboard, he noted the external temperature—forty-three degrees—and shook his head with disgust.

The first day of summer. Ridiculous.

Ballard wore a light charcoal suit with infinitesimally small, maroon pinstripes that had set him back $1,900 at Barcelino. He also sported a TAG Heuer watch, a $200 custom-made ivory dress shirt with his initials on the breast pocket, a Jerry Garcia tie (to balance out the ultraconservative tone of the rest of his attire), a highly shined pair of Brioni loafers. Even his knee-length, black silk socks came dear—$18 a pair. But he knew that if you wanted to instill confidence in your clients, you simply had to dress the part, as though money were the last thing you, or they, ever had to worry about.

Even without the elegant threads, Ballard cut an impressive figure. He worked out in his converted basement for an hour and a half every morning, so his six-foot frame looked pretty much the way it had when he’d pitched for Cal back in the eighties. A few lines had begun to crop up around his hazel eyes, but his light brown hair was still thick, his skin ruddy and smooth. The prominent, slightly off-kilter nose only added to his aura of powerful manhood.

Finally, he couldn’t put the inevitable off any longer, and he killed the ignition, took a steadying breath against the temperature shock, and opened the door.

There, out on the beach, where she said she’d be, by one of the boulder-bordered fire circles the hippies and/or the homeless used most nights, he could barely make out the huddled figure of his wife. He’d been with Sarah now for eight years, and though they’d had some difficult times in their marriage—their inability to conceive their own children had been a festering wound for half of those years together—it hadn’t been until recently that Ballard had begun to consider the possibility, for no specific reason other than apathy and guilt, that their relationship might actually end in divorce.

But they weren’t there yet—he hoped.

Now Stan was playing the role of the dutiful husband, coming down here to the ocean’s edge, at Sarah’s urging, because she had told him she needed him. And because she had so obviously still needed him, suddenly in the here and now, what he was doing didn’t feel like playing a role at all. Some flame still burned among the embers at the mere thought that he might still have an important place in her life, in her heart. And the warmth of that flame both surprised and disoriented him.

The ocean’s melancholy roar as waves broke at the offshore bar thrummed under the early evening’s weight. The tide was out, the sea itself not visible through the fog.

Stan came up beside her. She was wearing jeans and hiking boots and her familiar cowled BAY TO BREAKERS sweatshirt, with the hood up over her shoulder-length hair. He cleared his throat and she looked up at him, her shoulders giving in relief.

“Is there any more room on that rock?”

She shifted over a few inches, patted where she’d been, and he lowered himself down beside her.

“I’m sorry about this,” she said. “I don’t mean to be melodramatic. I was trying to keep you out of this, but it’s been a few days now and I don’t see how I can.”

“No, you can’t,” Stan said. “Out of what, though, exactly?”

She held her hands clasped tightly in front of her, her elbows resting on her knees. “Do you know what August twenty-third is this year?”

Stan considered for a long moment. “Should I?”

“You might. It might say something if you did.”

“Which means it also says something that I don’t?”

She turned to face him. With ice-blue eyes, finely pored, fair skin, and wide, perfectly defined cheekbones, Sarah was attractive from any angle, but from straight on, her face could be distracting in its beauty. “I don’t know. I honestly don’t know, Stan.” After a pause, she said, “It’s the tenth anniversary of Rosemary Thomas’s execution.”

Nodding, Stan remained silent for a beat. “I guess that’s about right.”

“It’s right. I googled it and made sure. Though I didn’t really doubt it.”

“How did it come up?”

“That’s what’s gotten me so upset. I got a letter—not an e-mail, mind you, but a real letter—from Tony Olsen.” She raised her eyes and looked out in front of her, as if she could see the breakers. “Actually, it was addressed to you.”

“When was this?”

“I don’t know. Monday, I think.”

Stan strained to keep the note of anger out of his voice. “And you opened it?”

“I had to. I was afraid of… I was afraid.”

“Of what?”

“What he’d do. Of why he could be writing to you, after all this time. Of what he wanted with you.”

“Tony Olsen’s got nothing to do with me, Sarah. He was connected to Rosemary and Chris Thomas, and so was I, and that’s it.”

“I know, but your testimony… I know he never forgave you for that, and he’s a powerful man, Stan.” Again she faced him with a pleading look.

“So what did he want?”

“I’ve got the letter, if you want to read it.”

“In a minute, maybe, but what’s the short version?”

“He wants to have a memorial service.”

Stan barked out an outraged laugh. “For Rosemary? That’s insane. Why would anybody want to do that? Okay, a memorial for Chris, maybe, but not for the woman who killed him.” Stan remembered now that Rosemary had mentioned such an event in her will, though he’d never expected anyone to take it seriously.

“Except nobody liked Chris.”

“I liked him all right. I’ve got to believe his mistress—what was her name, Haile—she liked him. And there were others.”

“Girlfriends, yes. But, according to Jon, the guy was a thorough shit. Believe me. He dug up some crazy dirt on Christopher Thomas during his investigation. And Haile? She was just impressed with his money and power. For you the Thomases were just early clients who helped you get going. But Christopher wasn’t anybody’s idea of a nice guy. And maybe, in fact, Rosemary didn’t kill him.”

“Wrong. That’s your ex-husband talking. There’s no maybe on that score. She killed him all right. The jury had no problem with that. There wasn’t ever any doubt about whether—” Suddenly he stopped and turned to his wife. “Ah. But this isn’t really about Tony, is it?”

Sarah hunched down farther into her sweatshirt.

“Maybe I ought to take a look at the letter,” Stan said.

“All right.” She reached inside the sweatshirt and came out with an envelope. “But you’ll see, he never mentions Jon.”

“No. He wouldn’t, would he? Especially to us. You’re married to me now. That case is what got us together. No need to belabor the obvious, but Jon always thought he screwed up that case—everybody knows that—and that was what screwed him up. Terminally.”

“Not terminally.”

“No? Well enough to lose you over.”

“I know. I just wish it could have been something else.”

“There was something else, if you remember. Animal connection, if nothing else.”

But the small attempt at humor got no rise from her. “I sometimes wonder if there was nothing else.”

“Well, thanks very much, now, after all these years.”

She reached over and took his hand. “Don’t be mad, Stan. I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. I just don’t know if I’ll ever get over the guilt.”

“Guilt for what? Falling in love with someone else who adored you while your husband fell into the toilet and never came out? And you know what the true irony is? He was right all along. All this agonizing and hand-wringing over how he’d blown the investigation. Give me a break. Rosemary killed Chris. There wasn’t any evidence that pointed to anybody else—not to me, not to anybody.”

Sarah looked up at him. “Why on earth would it have pointed to you?”

Stan shrugged. “It was just… a figure of speech.”

“All right, Stan, all right. As you say, we’ve been through it all a million times.” In a small voice she sighed and added, “Maybe you ought to look at the letter.”

“Maybe I should.”

If for no other reason than to give himself time to calm down, Stan studied the envelope—Tony Olsen’s personal stationery. The address handwritten with a fountain pen in Olsen’s careful script. Postmarked in the superexclusive Seacliff neighborhood of San Francisco, where the well-known venture capitalist had lived for the past twenty-five years.

When he’d finished reading the letter, Stan stood up and walked several feet away from his wife toward the ocean. The beating of his heart threatened to drown out the roar of the surf. He stood, hands in his pockets, numb enough now that the chill of the fog failed to touch him. Finally, his breathing under control, he turned and walked back to where Sarah sat. “What does he hope to get out of this? Why would anybody go?”

“If you don’t go, you might look like you didn’t care.”

This brought a smirk of dark mirth. “Sarah, this just in: I don’t care. All of this happened more than ten years ago. The guilty person got convicted, sentenced, and executed. Now Olsen wants everybody who was there the night Chris went missing to show up and do what exactly? Mourn the loss of Rosemary? I don’t think so.”

“You think it’s really about Jon?”

“What else could it be? He’s still whipping himself for thinking he made such a huge mistake. Which, by the way, he didn’t.”

“Tony never says any of that.”

“That’s because if he did, his motive for this memorial or whatever he calls it would be clear even to the people he invited who aren’t connected to Jon. In any event, I don’t think it’s going to make any real difference.”

“Why not?”

“Because who’s going to go?”

“What do you mean?”

“Just what I said. Who would go?”

“Everybody. You all would have to.”

“Or what?”

“Or you’d look… I don’t know. Maybe guilty?”

“Of what? There’s no unsolved crime out there, darling. Unless Tony’s taking this whole thing to the press…”

“Which he’d do in a heartbeat.”

Stan held up a hand. “Even so, so what? I’m a busy guy. So are at least half the people who were there the night of the murder. We can’t make the memorial. We’ll send flowers. End of story, such story as there is. Which is slim and none anyway.”

“So you’re not going?”

“No chance.”

“And what about me?”

“What about you?”

“I pushed Jon when he wasn’t sure. It was… my fault.”

“No. That made you a good wife to a cop, that’s all. Not an accomplice.”

“But I still feel guilty about it.” Sarah stood up and put her hands on her husband’s arms, looking him in the eye. “They executed her, Stan. And say whatever else you will about him, we both know Jon isn’t stupid. He must have come to believe she didn’t do it for a real reason.”

“Okay, I’ll concede that’s what he came to believe. But that doesn’t mean he’s right. I think the rule is that evidence talks and bullshit walks, Sarah. And high up there under bullshit is wishful thinking and second-guessing. You want my opinion, I’ll tell you that Jon got caught up in a little of both.”

Peter Heusen lived full-time on a seventy-two-foot cabin cruiser named Désirée that he moored just off the St. Francis Yacht Club. On this Thursday morning, he had sent his first mate, Roger, over in the dinghy at a little after eleven o’clock to pick up Stan Ballard. The dark pall of the persistent June gloom hugged the headlands at the Golden Gate, but here on the back deck where they’d set out the lunch table, the sun shone unobstructed in a light breeze. It was warm enough for shirtsleeves for Peter, and even Ballard had been persuaded to remove his suit coat.

The two men were neither exact contemporaries nor close friends, but they had something of a financial and personal history, and as they took their seats and let Roger pour the wine, small talk flowed as effortlessly as the pinot grigio.

But when the mate disappeared back into the hold, Heusen put his wineglass down and leveled his gaze across the white linen, the silver, the crystal. “So, this invitation. I’m afraid I don’t see the urgency around it that you do, Stan. The whole idea strikes me as somewhat eccentric, granted, but Tony’s always had that side of him. Look at how he essentially became Nunn’s protector and savior after Nunn essentially put the noose around Rosemary’s neck. Can you say ‘conflict of interest’? But that kind of inconsistency never seemed to bother him. He was glad enough that somebody had killed Chris, I’m sure. He truly hated the guy. But on the other hand, he didn’t want Chris’s killer to have been Rosemary. Or didn’t want her punished for it anyway.” Peter shrugged. “The guy’s a junkie for drama, that’s all. And maybe things have been slow for him on that score lately.”

Stan sat back from the table far enough that he could cross one leg over the other in a relaxed posture. He held his wineglass by its slender stem and slowly turned it, hoping to convey a casualness that couldn’t have been more at odds with his actual state of mental turmoil. “So, you don’t see Nunn’s involvement here?”

The question seemed to surprise Heusen. “No sign of it. What does he have to do with this? He’d be pretty out of place at this memorial, wouldn’t you think? Having been the one who pretty much made sure Rosemary got convicted.”

Heusen sipped some wine. “I think I’d put Jon Nunn out of your mind. Of course, for you, being married to Sarah, that might be a little more difficult.”

In spite of Stan’s worries, this comment brought a small smile. “Not to put too fine a point on it,” he said, then added, “She’s pretty convinced it’s all about him, wanting to get it right this time.”

“He got it right last time.” Heusen shook his head dismissively.

“That’s what I told Sarah.”

“But she doesn’t believe that?”

Stan took a beat. “She thinks there are still some questions.”

“After a trial and appeals and …?” Peter gulped his wine and poured himself another glass. His forehead was dotted with perspiration.

“It was still the fastest execution in the state in forty years.”

Heusen held up a hand, his mouth twisted in distaste. “Please. I remember, all right. But I’ve got to believe that even if they appealed for another twenty years, it still would have turned out the same way. And you know why? Because my dear departed sister was in fact her husband’s killer—it was proved.” Peter drank the second glass of wine and slammed the glass down.

The talk came to a halt while Roger appeared again, refilled their glasses, and laid their plates in front of them—sand dabs, coleslaw, baby carrots. When the mate had finished and gone back belowdecks, Stan asked, “So you’ll be at the memorial?”

“Well, she was my sister. I couldn’t very well not attend, could I?”

“You don’t feel that, in view of our investments and…?”

Heusen waved away the objection. “Our investments are immaterial. I don’t see what you’re implying. I was the estate’s executor. You were my adviser. All we’ve done is make money. It’s benefited the children and it’s benefited us too. No one could find any fault with that.”

“No.” Ballard took a breath, treading softly. He sipped his wine. “But we also made a nice profit for ourselves, didn’t we? I mean, with both Chris and Rosemary gone, all the Heusen money came to—”

“I know where it came. It came to me, Stan, with a good hunk to you as commission. And a goddamned good thing it did too. I refuse to feel any guilt about that.” Peter cocked his head. “Is this why you wanted to come out and have this little chat today?”

“Yes. Mostly, I’d say so.”

Peter’s face darkened. “You think someone, after all these years, will see a motive for one of us to have killed Chris?”

“If someone’s looking,” Stan said, “and I believe Jon Nunn is.”

“Then let him look. He didn’t find anything back when it mattered. He won’t find anything now.”

“But back when it mattered, Rosemary and Chris’s money was in escrow during the trial. It wasn’t until she was executed that it came to you, Peter. That was almost two years after Chris’s murder.”

“Ah. The way you put it, you make it sound like the perfect crime for a patient man. But you can’t think anybody would believe that I would have let my own sister be executed just so I could get access to her money, do you, Stan?”

“No!” Too quickly. Stan sat back, assayed a smile, came at it again. “No, of course not. Although you must admit you’d been in a bit of a skid financially. I’m just saying that Jon Nunn might—”

“Jon Nunn, Jon Nunn, Jon Nunn,” Heusen exclaimed. “The man’s a drunk and a nonentity. If it weren’t for the fact that you’re married to his ex-wife, he wouldn’t even be on your radar, nor should he be.” Peter came forward, eyes shining over the table. “We’ve done nothing wrong over these years, Stan. And quite a bit of good. Rosemary was a gullible woman who turned out to be a victim of her own weaknesses, her own softness, her own inability to make good decisions. She should never have been entrusted with any part of our family fortune. Now, I’m not saying she deserved to die, of course, but there seemed to be a certain karmic justice in having it all come back to me, just at the moment that you and I were becoming positioned to take full advantage of it. In fact”—Peter raised his glass, the alcohol taking effect—“I’d like to propose a toast to our collaboration and to our continued success.”

Having no choice but to comply, Stan Ballard raised his own glass to chime it against that of his wealthiest client.

Justine Olegard, curator at the McFall Art Museum, reached for the envelope that she’d tucked under the side of the blotter on her desk. She’d had a premonition when the thing had arrived the other day in the mail, and though Tony Olsen had always been a large benefactor and player in the museum’s ongoing development, something about this particular envelope had struck her as somehow ominous, and she’d put off opening the thing.

Now, at her lunchtime on this Thursday, she had locked her door and, using her Navajo dagger, cut open the envelope. Sitting back, she read the letter quickly, then set it down squarely in front of her and read it again.

It couldn’t have been less welcome news.

Tony would be using the museum to hold some sort of a memorial to commemorate the death—by execution no less—of Rosemary Thomas. This was just the kind of distraction that Justine, now on the cusp of the museum’s new season, did not need.

In fact, she never ever again wanted to hear the names Rosemary and Christopher Thomas.

Of course, the demise of both Thomases had been the prime reason for her ascendancy at the museum. Back then, she had been in her early thirties and still liked to believe she had the bloom of youth, that she could be attractive to a charismatic and powerful man such as Chris Thomas for her body and face as well as for her brains, erudition, organizational skills.

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